Is there any data file that defines terrain?

[PatrickAWlson]

In PWCG I do not have access to any data that allows me to understand what kind of terrain is at what location.  As a result AAA guns sometimes end up in the river, etc.  I suspect that the game does have this data.  Is there any way to access this data from outside of the game.

[Murleen]

I think there's basically a bitmap that defines water, and one for trees. The format isn't immediately obvious, but I think there were some tools to generate these floating around for RoF - @LizLemon might know.

[LizLemon]

Are you looking for the heightmap? Or water/trees? Heightmap I can extract but I haven't figured out water/trees yet.

[PatrickAWlson]

23 minutes ago, LizLemon said:

Are you looking for the heightmap? Or water/trees? Heightmap I can extract but I haven't figured out water/trees yet.

 

Unfortunately water/trees ... to avoid putting stuff into water and trees  .  OK, trees I'm fine with although some of my users complain (why aren't the ground troops sitting out in the open where I can shoot them?).  But a tank or cannon in the water ... not so good.

[coconut]

Kappa on my discord has contributed the following code to extract forests and water from the maps using image analysis: https://github.com/dpm314/il2_map_analysis

I haven't come to the point in my project where I'll integrate it, so I haven't tested it yet.

 

I'm not sure if user kappa on the forums is the same person, so I'll ask him to check this thread. Hopefully he'll jump in the discussion, he's better placed than me to explain how to use his code.

[[Pb]Kappa_]

Hi Pat and Coconut - 

sry, yeah I am not that active on the forms here

but yes, I wrote a python code for Coconut that does identify fro all the maps the coordinates of water, forest, or city (labeled separately) from the left corner of the map in meters. I did this with some image processing - its not perfect but generally good to 100 meters or so over the whole map.

I am more than happy to help you with that code or to just send the results (its a pretty huge file, a few GB). 

 

If you are still interested please send me a message, happy to help. 

 

[Pb]Kappa_

examples are here: https://github.com/dpm314/il2_map_analysis/tree/master/exampleFigures 

my code will give as an output the coordinates in meters from the lower left corner of either the water, river or city coordinates in a .csv

you can see an example of those in the figures included in that link

 

[[Pb]Kappa_]

FWIW Folks - Kappa here, I am around and haven't flown in IL-2 in years but happy to help with the terrain code, send me a message. I heard recently (now 2024 and this convo I realize is back from years ago) there is a renewed interest in this. Happy to help. 

 

[Utopioneer]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:43 PM, [Pb]Kappa_ said:

FWIW Folks - Kappa here, I am around and haven't flown in IL-2 in years but happy to help with the terrain code, send me a message. I heard recently (now 2024 and this convo I realize is back from years ago) there is a renewed interest in this. Happy to help. 

 

Thank you Kappa,

 

There is indeed a renewed interest in this from my end now that the tools are released. I see we can export (and maybe re-import after modification with outside raster/GIS software?) mesh layers and aux map dds tiles. Is there any kind of published documentation on the mesh format and raster cell codes for the aux map dds?